Things We Should Have Done
by CubbiesGirl
Summary: Will Harry and Karen be able to piece back together what they've lost, or is it too late?


Chapter One

It was the constant tiredness and the sore joints that drove her to the doctor, initially thinking she was just stressing herself out after learning of Harry's betrayal. Now she was sitting in the oncologists office, waiting for blood results and other tests she can't remember the name of because all her brain heard was cancer and immediately her children's faces flashed though her mind; her troublemaker of a son, Bernard and her precious Daisy, her world, her everything.

She knows she's getting ahead of herself, it's probably just a bug and these tests were purely precautionary. There's a little part of her brain though that's leaking doubt every second she sits alone in the office, waiting for the Dr. Chow to show up. She chewed her lip as another minute ticked by on the clock on the wall behind Dr. Chow's desk. She wished Harry were here, this waiting game is not one she's ever been good at and she needs someone to tell her it's going to be alright even if it's really going to go to hell.

She's started to wring her hands when Dr. Chow finally entered the room and sat behind the desk in front of her. He was looking down at the file in his hand when he sat down, but when he looked up she knew what he was going to say before he even opened his mouth. Dr. Chow took a deep breath and then delivered the news she already knew.

"Mrs. Thompson, I am so very sorry, but the tests were positive." Karen took a deep breath to clear the tears, and quickly told herself to stop being such a baby, she could beat this; there were powerful treatments out there.

"Well, um when do I…do I start treatment? Can that be arranged straight away?" Karen mentally cursed herself for the tremble in her voice that caused her words to trip over themselves as they fell from her lips. At this Dr. Chow took another deep breath and spoke again.

"Mrs. Thompson, your cancer has progressed fast and unfortunately at this point there is nothing we can do for besides prescribe powerful pain killers. I'm very sorry Mrs. Thompson, I wish there was more I could do, but the procedures available for such a case as yours are less than 1% effective and very expensive. At this point all I can recommend is that you go home and spend time with your family."

Karen leaned back in her seat and uttered a silent "oh. How uh… how long?"

"A year, maybe, it's hard to tell." Her children's faces flashed through her mind once again, and her husband. She so longed for Harry to be there, to hold her and whisper nonsense in her ear the way he used to. She didn't give a fuck about that damn necklace anymore; she just needed her husband, just Harry.

"Mrs. Thompson?" Karen looked up to see Dr. Chow staring at her with concern, and she was surprised to see a slight mist in his eyes as he held out a slip of paper with her painkiller prescription written out in sloppy penmanship.

"Sorry, thank you Dr. Chow, for everything." Karen smiled and, grabbing the paper from his hand, she walked briskly out of the office. She continued the pace down to her car, and raced against the clock to beat Bernard and Daisy home from school, determined to spend as much time with them as she could.

"Mummy, can't we have something besides spaghetti? We always have spaghetti on Wednesdays!" Bernard bust into the kitchen just as Karen finished setting the table for dinner.

"I thought you liked spaghetti?" Karen asked, surprised and slightly amused as her son scrunched up his nose in frustration, clearly trying to come up with the best way to present his case.

"I do," He started "but it's so boring. Sam's dad let's him eat pizza whenever he wants." Karen wanted to laugh and burst into tears all at the same time. How had she lived so many years without this young boy? Instead she settled on her standard answer.

"Well I'm not Sam's dad am I?" She smiled lightly as Bernard sighed and answered that no, she most certainly was not.

"Now, why don't you fetch your sister for dinner, you'll father will be home soon." Bernard ran off to find his younger sister Daisy, at the same time Karen heard the front door open. Harry was home.

"Hello darling, how was your day?" Harry asked as he walked into the kitchen, not looking up from the mail he was examining in his hand. It had been toe months since the necklace disaster, and she had forgiven him, yet he still seemed distance. She had done everything she could think of. She had spruced up her wardrobe, joined a gym, and even bought some revealing nightclothes at the instance of her soon-to-be sister-in-law, Natalie. Nothing, she still slipped into bed every night next to s stranger.

"Great, but uh, we need to speak after dinner." She spoke softly in case the children were in ear shot. Harry looked up at her then and answered with a short 'okay' before disappearing up the stairs. Karen wiped furiously at the small tears that had started to form at her husband's cold reply.

Karen paced the floor the bedroom she shared with her husband as she waited for Harry to join her. She wasn't quite sure how she was going to present this, or what his reaction would be. She was never one for tears, but she didn't think she'd have to worry about that, she just hoped that he'd care a little, just a little. The sound of Harry clearing his throat behind her pulled her out of her thoughts. "Harry, good, you're here."

"Of course," he replied, and sat down on the side of the bed in front of her while she continued the space in a small circle.

"So, um, there's something that I have to tell you. It's um, well it's kind of bad. Okay it's a little bit more than kind of. It's more like, life changing you could say." She smiled at her own inside joke as she babbled, not being able to actually form the words with her tongue, which was rapidly growing numb and heavy in her mouth. Harry just stared up at her.

"Well, spit it out then," he urged her in a bland tone. Karen took a calming breath and went with the band-aid theory, best to just put it all out there.

"I went to the doctor today and they found…they found…" _Oh fuck it_ Karen thought as she stumbled over her words. "Harry, I have cancer. They told me that at taking into consideration cost and success rates that I should just go on without treatment. It's terminal." There, she'd said it, it was all out there and the ball was in his court now.

During her entire monologue, Karen had been staring at spot beyond Harry's shoulder, but now she looked down to search his eyes for some type of emotion. She watched as he looked up at her, clearly shocked, but the love she had hoped to see seemed to be missing.

She was about to give up she felt his arms wrapping tightly around her waist and his face being buried deep into the crook of her neck. She brought her arms and slid them around his neck softly and buried her face in his chest when she felt his tears slip from his cheek onto her shoulder.

**AN: Okay, so I just watched this movie the other day, and I hate the way this storyline ends, it's not fair. True this isn't exactly happy right now, but it will be resolved better. Basically this comes from too much Stepmom and too much Love actually viewing. Love it? Hate it? Let me know, I handle criticism well, don't be shy! Oh also, I do not own any of the characters and I am not making any money from this story either. **


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